


and in sad cypress we shall be laid

by commodorecliche



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And a lot of comfort in the second, Angel Wings, Angst, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Deep love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fallen Angel, First Time, Friendship/Love, Getting Together, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Healing, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love, M/M, Making Love, Mutual Pining, There is a lot of hurt in the first chapter, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Wings, and a shit ton of tree imagery, detailed depictions of injury, i literally don't know what else to tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-08-10 23:14:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20143588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commodorecliche/pseuds/commodorecliche
Summary: When it comes to falling from grace, Aziraphale would be lying if he said he hadn't expected something… different… than what it was.He’d expected it, the Fall, he means, to be immediately and unquestionably painful.He’d expected it hurt, to burn, to envelope him in agony as he careened a million light years across the cosmos, downward, towards the nether realms. What was the point of a punishment if you didn’t realize you were being punished in the moment? That was Heaven’s usual approach to that sort of business - or so Aziraphale thought.Instead, the Fall itself was quick and painless. So quick he didn’t even have a chance to fully realize it was happening.One moment, he was standing in the upper offices in front of the Archangels and the other Principalities, and in the next moment, he was waking up in a daze on the floor of his bookshop.He doesn’t know what he expected - but it certainly wasn’t this.





	1. 01.

**Author's Note:**

> Aziraphale falls. Crowley picks up the pieces. They heal together.

When it comes to falling from grace, Aziraphale would be lying if he said he hadn't expected something… different… than what it was.

He’d expected it, the Fall, he means, to be _ immediately _ and _ unquestionably _painful. 

He’d expected it hurt, to burn, to envelope him in agony as he careened a million light years across the cosmos, downward, towards the nether realms. What was the point of a punishment if you didn’t realize you were being punished in the moment? That was Heaven’s usual approach to that sort of business - or so Aziraphale thought.

Instead, the Fall itself was quick and painless. So quick he didn’t even have a chance to fully realize it was happening. 

One moment, he was standing in the upper offices in front of the Archangels and the other Principalities, and in the next moment, he was waking up in a daze on the floor of his bookshop.

He doesn’t know what he expected - but it certainly wasn’t this. 

**::**

Aziraphale pries his eyes open, the motions burdensome and heavy as though he’d been sleeping as deeply as the mortals could. He’s tired and hazy feeling, listless and heavy in a way he’s never felt before. 

He gingerly pushes himself up to sit, legs canted out to his left, and takes in his surroundings. A distinct odor of sulfur and brimstone lingers in the crackling, steaming air around him. The wooden floor below his body is rough and uncomfortable. Splintery, almost. 

This is his bookshop, that much is obvious. His eyes scan the room, observing his shelves and tomes. There doesn’t appear to be a single book or piece of paper out of place - even the candles on his desk are courteously lit and flickering ever-so-softly in the quiet room. But the air around him… it’s different. It’s charged and thick - reeking of change, of dishevelment…. 

_ Of fresh celestial banishment _, he thinks to himself. 

Aziraphale knows this smell - he’s seen far too many of his cohorts fall from grace to _ not _ know the smell of it. He looks down at the floor beneath him and only then does he notice that it’s broken. There is a large indentation impressed into it in the exact shape of his body. The floorboards are cracked and broken, certain places smolder with amber embers akin to the candles’ flames. His floor looks like a meteor had struck it in the night.

This pockmark - the exact shape and size of his physical body - is the only sign of ruin in his entire shop. 

He knew this day would come eventually: you can’t fraternize with a demon without someone noticing. You certainly can’t fall in _ love _ with a demon over the course of six millennia without _several_ Heavenly Someones taking notice. And you _ most _certainly can’t put a stop to Armageddon with your demonic companion without causing a bit of collective anger from the people Upstairs (and the ones Downstairs, as well, if you want to get technical). 

He _ knew _one day he’d be cast out. He just… thought it would be different than this. More dramatic, more insufferable. 

Crowley never told him much about his own fall, but from what little Aziraphale has picked up over the centuries, it seems to have been a most _unpleasant_ experience. The details were always fuzzy, but Aziraphale understands it to be an experience that was filled with pain and fire, agony that rippled through the flesh. Abyssal darkness and torment, and profound emptiness that weighed upon your body like shackles. 

So what’s so different now? What is so different about his own frightful descent from the Heavens? He doesn’t ache yet, there is no fire, save for the lit candles and the faint lingering smell of brimstone, and there are no shackles upon his body to bind him to Hell below. 

The emptiness is certainly there, though, undoubtedly. Aziraphale can’t put it into words yet, even if he tried, but there is a woefully hefty weight eating away inside of him, a hunger for comfort and love, a scourge of nothingness and rejection building up inside his gut. The unbearable gravity of loss begins to settle over him the longer he stays sat in the crater in his floor, inside the harsh cradle of his disgrace. 

Aziraphale brings a weary hand to his forehead and smooths his fingers across the creases. His face feels clammy and cold to the touch, deprived now of all the warmth and comfort Heaven had once given him. 

He flexes his back gently, if only to stretch out his corporeal form. And it's then that the first bout of pain sets in.

It’s _harsh_. And sudden. A stinging burn zipping across his shoulder blades, right where his wings would extend from his body. His sucks in a harsh gulp of air at pain. 

Without a thought, he attempts to conjure his wings. He aches to spread them, to stretch and relieve the ache he feels coursing through the musculature of his back. But instead of the comforting, exhilarating rush of his feathers emerging like a miracle from his corporeal form, Aziraphale is met with only searing pain. In a sudden burst, it cuts like a knife has been stabbed into him and is wrenching its way through the muscle and nerve endings this body has allowed him. 

He doesn’t mean to, but he buckles and shouts from the pain: rough and groany as it surges through his entire being like a wave. The arms that are just barely supporting him go weak at the elbows and he almost collapses back onto the floor before he finds his strength. 

_ This isn't right.  
_

His strained, pained cries resonate through the silent emptiness of his bookshop. 

_ Something _has torn his body and has forced its way up through his back. It’s hot like fire, a dark pain the likes of which he’s never felt before. Whatever it is that protrudes from his body has ripped up through the tenuous meat of his physical form, rending a mangled furrow into his flesh, leaving nothing but blood and pain in its wake. 

Aziraphale imagines this must have been the pain Christ felt as he was whipped and cut atop the stone at Golgotha. It might feel pretentious to him later, but he almost wonders if this pain might be worse. Christ was _born_ to receive that pain - Aziraphale had only fallen into it. 

His face is teeming with sweat and sticky, salty tears that feel foreign and unwelcome against his skin. He wants to stop it - how long has it been since he has properly cried? Has he ever _truly_ cried? 

_ Perhaps the last time was when Crowley had asked him - oh so casually - for a carafe of Holy Water. Aziraphale had spent the rest of the night (and week and month and year and century) despairing at the thought of his best friend destroying himself in such a horrific manner. The tears had come when he had felt so helpless, so weak, so pained by the thought of his best friend leaving him behind for good.   
_

No matter how hard he tries to stop himself from reacting to this hurt, his vision goes blurry and wet with misery at every hot, lashing sting that rips through his back. Aziraphale hangs his head, mouth open and panting, his arms once again threatening to buckle beneath the weight of his pain. With shaking, unsteady motions, he shifts and folds his knees beneath himself, supporting his body with just one arm. His other hand trembling, he lifts it and fumbles over the expanse of his shoulder, searching and moving down towards his shoulder blade. 

He doesn’t know what he’ll find there and the thought alone of what this pain might mean is enough to make him sick, but he has to know. 

At first touch, Aziraphale’s fingers grapple across his shoulder in search of the bases of his wings. His jacket and shirt are torn, unceremonious and haphazard - remnants of the violence he had felt only a moment ago. The skin that he can feel through the tears in his clothes is wet with something thick and tacky and Aziraphale wrenches his hand back so he can look at whatever it might. His stomach sinks and his throat tightens. 

Deep red blood coats his hand. 

_ Angels don’t bleed like this. Not this color. Not this much. _

Aziraphale grits his teeth and swallows the sickness he feels bubbling up in his throat. He flings his hand back over his shoulder and wills his fingers onward, if only out of sheer desperation to prove his own fears wrong. They creep and map his body until the tips of his fingers slip down into the wretched, lacerated grooves in his flesh. 

_ These… these are wounds! _

Open, fresh wounds - still bleeding, still raw, still burning with pain and disgrace beneath his touch. 

_ My skin isn’t like that - my body doesn’t do that! M-my wings… _

His hand begins to shake, but he doesn’t dare look over his shoulder. Just the opposite, he clenches his eyes shut instead, convinced that perhaps it might help make this situation a little less real. 

It only takes a moment before his fingers find the hard, bone-like base of his right wing. It protrudes up through his bloodied, mangled wounds like a tree trunk that has ripped it way up through the earth.

Aziraphale huffs and uneven breath.

_ At least they’re there _, he thinks to himself, and yet something else inside him tells him he cannot trust this moment, cannot trust this relief. He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth and allows his hand to continue onward. His fingers scale up the stalk of his right wing in search of softness, in search of the place where the bone becomes feather - expansive and whole. 

But there’s nothing.

Aziraphale, rather than find the silky tresses of his wing, is met instead with nothing more than a frayed, broken stump sticking out from his back. His eyes grow wide as he stares at the far wall, body and brain ricocheting into shock. His hand fumbles with the throbbing stub, every motion becoming more desperate, more urgent as he fondles this blood-soaked projection. He’s frantic - praying to anyone who might listen that he will find _ something _ back there, that he would find _ anything _that might resemble the wings he used to have. But his hands find nothing, and every touch is like clawing at an open wound. 

“No,” Aziraphale whispers to himself. 

He dares to crane his head slightly, eyes following the direction to stare over his right shoulder to where his wing should be. There is a thought inside him that perhaps if he just _ looks _ , then everything would be alright. The wing will be there, if he just looks. Surely, his hands have lied to him.

But his wing _ isn’t _ there. Instead his eyes come to rest on the awful stump his hand is so unceremoniously gripping. It’s _grotesque_, the sight of it. Drenched in red that has stained his palm and fingers, these bone-like protrusions stick out of his back like a tibia might protrude from a shin when broken. There are a few remnants of small feathers stuck to the mess of the stalk - once white but now crimson, matted, soaked in the color of his transgressions. 

Pain sears through him once again. He grips the broken base of his wing and squeezes through the ache, shaking his head in urgency and frantic denial. 

“No, no, no,” Aziraphale huffs into the silence of his bookshop. His face contorts into some new expression, grimaced, and filled with agony, unfamiliar on him. He pulls his shaking hand away from his mutilated wings and stares down at it - tacky blood covers it and mangled feathers stick to the mess.

He cannot control the grief anymore. 

In the absolute silence of his bookshop, Aziraphale _screams_. 

It’s raw and wailing, guttural and full of ache, longing, and betrayal. He _knew_ he would fall eventually, he has been falling for 6,000 years already, but this… this is so much more than he’d ever expected. 

He _ screams _and sobs and howls for his loss into the emptiness of his shop. 

The physical pain is but a fraction of the grief he endures. The body suffers, of course, and Aziraphale knows his body will suffer now until the end of time. But more than the body, he mourns the hollow ache within his core. No longer does he feel the warmth of the Almighty, no longer does Her presence occupy a critical part of his being. 

No longer is he _wanted_, no longer is he _worthy_. 

Aziraphale doesn’t want to - he’d do anything at all to stop this despair - but he cries out for _ Her _. He kneels on his hands and knees, curled into himself against the ruined floor of his shop. He bows forward, lowers his head down to the ground, and cries: cries out for the God he knows is no longer with him. 

His physical body is far too small for this. It is far too fragile and full of injury to endure the excess of anguish that courses through him. Its thin flesh is but a tenuous cage around his sorrow. 

Each sob wracks his body to the point of breaking. He heaves with every unhinged breath, feeling his muscles tense and pull as he rocks with his mourning.

He could be sick. He may as well be. 

_ God, does it hurt, please, oh God, make this go away. _

He grieves to Her. 

And She doesn’t answer. 

She hasn’t answered him 6,000 years. Why would She bother now? 

He keeps his head against the ground, and curls more deeply into himself. His knees tuck against his chest and his elbows press into the floor as he brings his hands to his head. He threads his blood-red fingers into pale, platinum curls. He grips and clutches at the hair and pulls, gritting his teeth through the ache. This pain is too much, too soon, too sudden. This loss is far too raw. 

Aziraphale realizes, with a sudden pause somewhere in the midst of his sobs, that this must have been what the Fall was like for Crowley. He realizes with sobering clarity that his dearest friend had probably experienced this _ exact _moment: the realization that everything you were... that everything you had ever known or loved, had not only been stripped from you, but had been taken away in only the most horrific of ways. 

The awful understanding that you have been cast aside and left for nothing hangs heavy in the air around him. 

_ Does ever ache ever go away? Crowley, please… Tell me, does the pain ever stop? _

Aziraphale doesn’t mean to, but deep down, he's weak, and a slave to love: he calls out Crowley’s name.

“Crowley… Crowley, please!” He hisses through clenched teeth. 

It seems strange to him - to cry out for a demon when it is the Almighty Mother that has left him so bereft and torn. And yet, in his anguish, he can think of no one else now that might soothe the hurt. No one else that might understand. And so he cries for his demon; he cries out for his love when he has not a shred of love to call his own. 

The grotesque, mangled stubs that once were his wings still have not stopped bleeding. The slick, warm liquid drips down the stumps and spreads across his back and sides, following gravity as he shakes. His clothes will be soaked with it. Aziraphale’s body heaves again and he folds more tightly into himself in response. He stays on his knees, keeps his forehead to the ground, as though he were begging for forgiveness from anyone who might grant him it.

He chokes out another sob. His cheeks are wet and sticky - they're coated now with a mixture of drying blood from his hands and the fresh tears still streaming from his eyes. 

His tears had been holy water once. Now they're salty and impure. The taste of them on his lips makes him ill.

This agony is far too much. 

If he were capable of dying, he’s sure this misery alone would be enough to do it. But God knows, and he knows, that he's not dying now; he will bleed, but he will not die. Fallen angels don’t die. No matter their grief. No matter their suffering. Aziraphale knows - has always known - that. 

Not all fallen angels go to Hell, not all of them become demons, but the agony - dear _ God _, the agony - of the Fall alone is its own personal Hell. 

For the first time in all of his infinite existence, he wonders if being destroyed completely would be better than this pain. At least then the ache would stop. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispers again through his tears, the name tumbling against the ruined floor beneath him. Now, more than ever he thinks, he wishes that his companion was by his side in his grief. Wishes so dearly that Crowley was here, not to share his pain, but rather to guide him through it. 

_ Please find me. Don’t leave me here alone. I cannot do this alone. _

Another broken sob stutters out of Aziraphale’s mouth.

A low voice speaks from somewhere in the shadows.

“Mine hurt like this too… Hurt like fuckin’ Hell..."

Aziraphale knows that voice. He jerks his head up to search the room for his dear friend. 

Crowley steps out of the shadows and into the soft light, each step he takes hesitant and worried. If Aziraphale were less grievous, and perhaps more focused on his companion, he might have noticed the pain on Crowley’s face, the tightness of his lips, the barely contained sorrow in the creases that line his forehead. If it were _ any _other time, Aziraphale might have noticed how desperate Crowley was to comfort him - how he was held back only by the fear that if he moved too suddenly, he would only do more harm than good. 

_ If it were any other time, I wouldn’t need his comfort so… _

“My fall," Crowley clarifies, "Satan, did it hurt... And it’s strange because, it's so fast at first... At first, you don’t even realize it’s happened. You don’t realize until it’s over and you wake up and see that you’ve been left to wallow and suffer in the abasement. Seems...” Crowley pauses and drops his gaze to the floor, kicking a small piece of rubble, “Seems a bit cruel.” 

He takes a quick breath and takes another step closer to Aziraphale’s prone figure. 

“You think for a minute, when you wake up and everything doesn’t feel _ terrible _ yet, that maybe… maybe they showed you mercy… until suddenly,” Crowley makes a soft puff with his lips and waves his hand, “you realize what’s gone.” _ Your wings, your core, and the warmth of the Almighty _. “And the pain settles in.” 

Aziraphale’s cheeks are still wet and sticky from the blood and the tears, and dear _God_, does he hate the treacherous feeling of them on his face. 

“Crowley…” Aziraphale whimpers. He spares a nervous glance down at the cracked indentation in his floor. He lifts his hand and extends it out towards Crowley. It’s a desperate and yearning request, a plea for his friend to come to him, to be by his side, to be _ on _his side, just like Crowley has always been. 

And Crowley, for all his previously exhibited restraint, doesn’t wait a moment before crossing the last few steps between them. He takes Aziraphale’s outstretched hand in both of his and kneels down at Aziraphale’s side. Clutching his friend's hand as tightly as he can without harming him, he brings it to his mouth. He doesn’t kiss it, just presses it against his mouth and cheek to remind Aziraphale that he’s here now. 

Aziraphale’s shoulders quake as another unsteady sob slips from his lips. 

“I’m here, you’re not alone,” Crowley mumbles with his angel’s hand still pressed against his lips. 

With a brief shake of his head, Crowley moves in closer. He releases Aziraphale’s hand in favor of wrapping his arms around him. He takes special care to wrap one arm low, cupping the small of Aziraphale’s back, pointedly avoiding the place where his body has has been brought to ruin. His other hand settles on the back of Aziraphale’s head, cradling him and urging him closer. Aziraphale, at first, presses his eyes against the curve of Crowley’s elbow. But even the minutest of space between them feels like a canyon. Crowley can't stand it: he ushers his friend even closer to him. He tugs on him until Aziraphale relents, scoots forward and buries his head in the crook of Crowley’s neck, his arms encircling Crowley to cling to his waist.

Crowley settles his chin atop Aziraphale’s shoulder. He strokes his friend's hair gently - as gently as his body will allow, at least, because right now all he truly wants to do is cling to his angel and draw him close with desperation and a need to protect. Crowley’s eyes stare at the grotesque, broken monstrosities protruding horrifically from his friend’s body. They’re an all too familiar sight to him - dead tree trunks reaching out towards the heavens before they truly bleach and die. They’re a sight that Crowley had seen on himself just after he’d been cast down to the pits of hell. They’re a sight that Crowley has seen on _all_ the other fallen angels that had ran or sauntered downwards. But never - absolutely _ never _\- had he imagined he would see this horror afflicting his dearest companion. 

“No, come now, don’t cry, Aziraphale, please,” Crowley pleads, his voice low and tender. He shrugs his shoulder slightly under Aziraphale's chin, silently urging him to left his head from his neck. Crowley lets his hand cup the curve of Aziraphale’s jaw. “Look, look at me: it’s not all bad… It’s not all fucked…”

Crowley pauses, scanning Aziraphale’s face for anything. He’s all but praying to find something there beyond the anguish, beyond the pain. 

“They’ll come back,” Crowley promises, “- your wings. They _will_ come back. They’ll be different, but they’ll come back.

“And-and, look where we are, it's the shop, we’re in your shop.” Crowley shakes his head. “They didn’t banish you... _Down_. You aren’t… You aren’t…” Crowley pauses, searching for the right word, “ _ tethered _, not like I am…” 

Crowley shakes his wrist lightly, and the tell-tale clang of his invisible chains - the chains that bind him to the nether realm below - rattle throughout the empty shop. 

He’s trying _ so _hard to be comforting, but the desperation in his compassion is palpable. He wants so much to give solace, but he only manages to sound pained, because deep down he knows his words are only half true.

It’s true that this isn’t as bad as it _ could _ be… Aziraphale isn't a demon, not like him. But that doesn't make it better... He knows what Aziraphale has lost.

Aziraphale, as if sensing Crowley’s upset, shivers and turns his head more fully into Crowley’s palm. He lets out another low cry, muffled only slightly by his companion’s hand. His face is so wet against Crowley’s skin and a rage inside the demon begins to boil, because _ nothing _ as good and as pure as Aziraphale should be suffering such loss, such grief, such… _ degradation _.

It’s not right, it’s not _ fair. _

Crowley has never seen his friend so broken, not in the _ entirety _of the 6,000 years he’s known this creature. 

Screaming, crying, fumbling for comfort - oh, yes, Crowley had done it all when he had fallen, too. What angel _ wouldn’t _ scream out? What angel _ doesn’t _wail for loss upon their banishment? 

But Aziraphale… he’d never deserved this. These screams, this heartache, it never should have befallen him. 

“I’m so sorry,” Crowley whispers, fingers nervously carding through Aziraphale’s hair. He can’t help but note the hints of red blood that linger in Aziraphale’s otherwise white locks - this is human blood, the blood of his body, that has so coarsely replaced the effervescent gold his soul used to contain. The red in Aziraphale’s hair - thick and clotting now - spreads onto Crowley’s hand like paint as he caresses. It smears across his skin like guilt and every motion he makes serves to spread this shame further and further across his angel's head. 

"I'm sorry," He says again.

Crowley doesn’t know what he’s trying to apologize for. For his absence when Aziraphale had needed him (not just today, but all the other times he was needed across the millennia and had chosen instead to stay away)? Or perhaps for being a part of Aziraphale's life at all?

_It’s probably the latter_, he thinks to himself. 

The image of Aziraphale’s blood on his hands seems rather fitting now. 

This is his fault. 

Aziraphale wouldn’t _ be _in this situation if it weren’t for him. 

“I-I’m sorry, I should have been here when you woke up, I’m-I’m sor-.”

This probably could have been avoided if they’d never met. Oh, yes, the Apocalypse would have happened, the Earth would have been laid to waste, and an eternal war would have waged between Heaven and Hell. But Aziraphale would have at least remained whole. He would have at least still had his wings. 

Pure. Righteous. _ Untainted _by Crowley’s wretched touch. 

He wants to be sick. But there’s no changing it now. 

_ It is what it is _ \- isn’t that what the humans say? 

It is what it is, but Crowley… he should have been here - he _ always _should have been here. 

“Crowl-” Aziraphale starts, but Crowley doesn’t let him finish, too anxious to explain himself. He _ needs _ to explain himself, he needs to explain _ all _this, to explain all the times he has fallen short in their relationship. 

“I just couldn’t find you… You were up top, I couldn’t sense you… I-I didn’t know you were here till-till it was too late...” 

Blood - still seeping out of Aziraphale’s wounds - drips down his back, still drenching his clothes, soaking into the place where Crowley’s hand presses into the small of his back. He wishes so much it would stop. 

Crowley would miracle this pain away, if he could. But this is so far out of his control. 

“You came when I called,” Aziraphale whispers, voice all but broken. He’s raw - wounded with pain and emotion that he can hardly contain. But Crowley is here and that alone is almost comfort enough. 

Crowley doesn’t say anything - doesn’t know what to say. 

Of course he came, how could he not? He’s spent eons learning that their friendship, no matter where they may be, is the only comforting constant in his meager existence. He doesn’t want to say that this is what he lives for, but if he’s honest (and by now he feels he’s more than earned the right to be honest with himself), a life without Aziraphale is hardly a life at all. 

“Of course I did, Angel.” 

“Don’t… don’t call me that… You can’t now,” Aziraphale whimpers, scooting forward and pressing his face into Crowley’s neck again. 

“The Hell I can’t.” 

“Crowley, please.” 

Aziraphale lifts his head away from Crowley’s throat. 

“What am I now, Crowley? Please, tell me. Tell me what this means. I… I just-” He doesn’t finish the thought. His voice goes tight and he barely stops his speech before it cracked. Aziraphale swallows the heavy lump in his throat and steadies himself. “Am I nothing?” 

“Of course not!” Crowley insists. “You’re everything. And you always will be. It doesn’t matter what _they _say,” he gestures vaguely upwards, “you’ll always be an angel.” 

The _ -to me _is unspoken, but Crowley thinks it so loudly he swears Aziraphale could hear it. 

Aziraphale drops his gaze to the floor between them. 

“It hurts,” he whispers. 

Crowley nods - because he knows it does - and ducks his head down so their foreheads are pressed together. 

“I know. It’ll pass… It’ll stop, Angel, I promise.” 

**::**


	2. 02

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immediate physical pain does, eventually, stop. Just as Crowley had promised him.
> 
> However, it takes weeks to do so.
> 
> The bloody, raw stumps that stick out of Aziraphale’s back do eventually heal. What few feathers had been left behind from the Fall eventually disintegrate and fall off: leaves shedding off a dying stem. They scab over and harden into calloused branches, until the only things that remain are the bones that jut out of his back like dead cypress skeletons in a swamp.
> 
> Now that they’ve healed, Aziraphale mostly keeps them hidden, locked away in the innermost corners of his soul. They don’t hurt if he doesn’t summon them. And so he keeps these horrid, sickly remains tucked away, if only to hide from the pain; to hide his shame. To hide from the world, from God, from himself…
> 
> From Crowley.
> 
> They’ll come back, Crowley had promised him.
> 
> Aziraphale pushes out a low breath as he stares at his mangled body in the bathroom mirror.
> 
> “But when?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY finished. this chapter was much longer than i expected it would be, but i'm really happy with how it came out. thar be angst and smut ahead, folks. enjoy. This chapter definitely rated E, duh.

**::**

The immediate physical pain _ does _ , eventually, stop. Just as Crowley had promised him.

However, it takes weeks to do so.

The bloody, raw stumps that stick out of Aziraphale’s back _ do _ eventually heal. What few feathers had been left behind from the Fall eventually disintegrate and fall off: leaves shedding off a dying stem. They scab over and harden into calloused branches, until the only things that remain are the bones that jut out of his back like dead cypress skeletons in a swamp.

Now that they’ve healed, Aziraphale mostly keeps them hidden, locked away in the innermost corners of his soul. They don’t hurt if he doesn’t summon them. And so he keeps these horrid, sickly remains tucked away, if only to hide from the pain; to hide his shame. To hide from the world, from God, from himself…

From _ Crowley _ .

_ They’ll come back _ , Crowley had promised him.

Aziraphale pushes out a low breath as he stares at his mangled body in the bathroom mirror.

“But when?”

He angles his shoulders more towards the mirror so he can get a better look at his back. The once-gaping gashes that had been rended into his flesh have healed as well. The horrid wounds have left tender, pink scar tissue in their wake. It’s not a pretty look on him - ugly little reminders of the brutalization he endured a mere month prior.

If Aziraphale wanted to, he could summon the scraggly bones to the physical plane, yank them out from his core just as he had the day he had fallen. It wouldn’t cause this newly healed flesh any _ physical _ harm this time, no - he _ knows _ that his body and soul have healed enough by now that the gashes would not reopen if he were to call his wings to him.

Oh, it would hurt, most _ certainly _ it would hurt just as badly as it had that very first day. But this body, this skin, will stay in tact as the remnants of his once-glorious wings claw their way out of him.

He only knows this because he’d tried it once, after his wounds had first begun to heal.

Crowley had not been around, of course; Aziraphale is sure that the demon would have stopped him had he been present. And in truth, he had really only tried it so he could satisfy his own morbid, piteous curiosity. He _ had _ to know… He had to find out if he was doomed to suffer this injury, this assault for the rest of his existence.

And so, alone, in front of his bedroom mirror, Aziraphale had called on his wings. He had closed his eyes, grit his teeth, and yanked the bones out from deep within the hollows of his soul. 

The stumps had ripped out of his body in a flash of white-hot pain that brought Aziraphale to his knees. He’d choked from it, gagged with the surge of ache and horror, flashing back to his Fall with appalling clarity.

It was violent, it was terror, and when he’d stood back up and looked into his mirror, he had fully expected to see his body ruined once again, turned into a mess of bone, flesh, and blood.

But instead, there was no mess. No damage. No fresh wounds. Instead, there were only bleached-out stumps of bone sticking out of his intact back. The pain was severe, it had cut him like a knife, and yet not a _ speck _ of injury had befallen his flesh. Trembling as he stared at himself in the mirror, Aziraphale had realized that this pain was to be a part of him now, even if his body remained whole.

_ The wounds will close, but the pain… the pain will always be there if I call it to me _ .

Now, Aziraphale sighs at his own reflection in his bathroom mirror, and he chooses to leave the bones where they belong. _ Hidden _ . He doesn't want to look at them again, doesn't want to feel their pain. And so he keeps the remnants of his grace tucked away inside his soul where they belong.

With another low breath, he slips on his shirt, ignores the ache, and leaves the bathroom without another thought.

**::**

Crowley - bless his kindness (if Aziraphale is even _ allowed _ to bless anything anymore) - does his absolute best to keep their lives as normal as possible over the next few months. Aziraphale appreciates it - perhaps more than he ever bothers to express.

Crowley takes him to lunch, Crowley takes him to dinner, Crowley finds the best wines, champagne, and liquors for them to try. Crowley takes him to the park and treats him to ice cream or people-watches with him on a bench for hours. Crowley eats with him and drinks with him, and jokes with him and pushes him, and he doesn’t stop trying until Aziraphale is smiling more often than he’s not. He sits too close, he stares too long, he hovers his hands over Aziraphale’s back whenever they’re near to each other, like he aches to touch and soothe him, but can’t.

Crowley calls him _ Angel _ , even though he doesn’t deserve the moniker anymore.

_ “A fallen angel is still an angel,” _ Crowley tells him every single time. And even though it hurts, Aziraphale still loves it when the endearment falls from Crowley’s lips.

The first month, Crowley barely leaves his side. By the second, third, and fourth, he has all but taken up residence in the bookshop. Crowley stays with him. He stays in the shop, he stays by his side. He stays on the sofa when Aziraphale sleeps: he imagines that’s the proper, respectable thing to do. Demons aren’t particularly known for their respectability, but he figures no one is really keeping score of his good or bad deeds anymore.

Crowley, for the most part, doesn’t need the rest… but Aziraphale does. Sleep is a much needed requirement in order to properly heal from this sort of trauma (a fact that Crowley had learned first hand over 6,000 years prior).

So Aziraphale rests, because he needs to. And Crowley stays on the sofa, because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Well, he _ mostly _ stays on the sofa.

Crowley stays on the sofa except for the nights when he hears Aziraphale cry out in his sleep.

It pains him to acknowledge it, but the tumultuous nights happen more often than they don’t. Crowley listens each evening from his post on the couch and listens to his friend’s melancholic cries with agonizing familiarity. He knows those cries all too well - he has lived them far too intimately to not know them. He knows, without question, that Aziraphale is relieving the Fall in his nightmares, revisiting the trauma in all the same ways Crowley had done after his own.

The night terrors, of course, would pass, just as the wounds had healed; it would just take time.

And yet… each and every time Crowley hears those cries, he aches to be by Aziraphale’s side. Each time, he grabs a pillow and a blanket and drags himself into Aziraphale’s room. He builds himself a pallette on the floor bedside the bed and hopes his silent presence will be enough to soothe the ache his friend is feeling.

If Aziraphale ever notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Crowley _ never _ sleeps in Aziraphale’s bed - no matter how many nights he has wished he could embrace his dearest friend. But there are lines he just can’t cross - not now. No matter how much he longs to comfort Aziraphale in way that might tell him that things will be alright, Crowley will not cross that line.

So he stays on the floor, squeezes Aziraphale’s hand, and whispers into the darkness,

“It’ll get better, Angel.”_  
_

If Aziraphale were a braver creature, he might have squeezed Crowley’s hand in return. But he’s not a braver creature, so he pretends to be asleep and takes Crowley’s comfort as it comes.

**::**

It’s eight months after the Fall before Aziraphale tries to summon his wings again.

It’s the middle of the night and Crowley has long since retired to the sofa to sleep off some of the champagne they’d indulged in during the early evening. Crowley had had a bit too much and had collapsed face-first onto the couch like it was the most comfortable place he could possibly be.

Aziraphale smiles tersely - he wonders how bad Crowley will be hungover tomorrow. He wonders if Crowley will come to him tonight if he should need him.

Aziraphale, by now, is sober. Sober enough, at least. He hadn’t miracled the alcohol away, not this time. Eight months down the line and something inside him still tells him he may no longer be _ worthy _ of miracles. Eight months down the line and he is still too afraid to try. Crowley always assures him that miracles are a part of his stock, regardless of whether Heaven wants him or not. _ Born _ a celestial entity, _ always _ a celestial entity. The stock never changes, just the status, Crowley tells him; assures him that his miracles will always be a part of who he is.

Aziraphale just doesn’t want to find out that Crowley is wrong. 

Instead, he sobers up the old fashioned way: lots of water and staying up too late to wait out the alcohol as it creeps its way through his body. By the time it’s gone, he’s left with a headache and a profound sense of exhaustion that settles somewhere deep within his bones. And when he finally retires into bed, he finds himself staring at the ceiling with a warm pain throbbing across his shoulder blades.

It’s too much to ignore, this phantom ache. Aziraphale sits up and shucks off his comforter. He strips himself of his evening shirt and kneels on the mattress. He realizes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this position is very similar to the one he had been in after the Fall. He flexes his back and shoulders, ripping the muscle beneath the skin. The scar tissue is tight across his body - sensitive and uncomfortable. All he wants, in this moment, is to feel the glorious expanse of his wings just one more time; he wants to feel them fill his soul and burst forth from his body like a flower’s petals might bloom from its bud.

He misses them - he misses his Mother: Her absence in his soul inextricably tied to the absence of his Heavenly wings.

It aches him.

But in this moment… in this quiet, pained moment, alone in his bedroom in the middle of the night, he misses Crowley too. Something inside of him longs for him, longs for his comfort, perhaps more deeply than he longs for the Almighty.

_ That’s blasphemy _ , Aziraphale thinks, _ but who really cares anymore?  
_

Crowley is nearby, and Aziraphale knows that, but he still feels so far away. Drunk and passed out on the couch in the shop, he is too far removed and Aziraphale cannot sense his comfort. 

_ Crowley _ . Aziraphale mumbles his companion’s name in the deepest recesses of his mind. And for a single, split second, the aching stops, only to return the very next moment.

Aziraphale grunts and buries his head in his hands.

He shouldn’t do this - he shouldn’t call these dead branches out from his body. He _ knows _ there is nothing to them. They are gravestones with missing bodies, empty ruins of the thing he used to be. The ache, the torment, _ none _ of it is worth it. It’s not worth the reminder of what he has lost. And yet… and yet the desire to bare them is overwhelming. Here in the darkness of his bedroom, with his demon, his companion (the only Love he has left in this world) sleeping soundly and so far from him, Aziraphale aches for the comfort of his wings. The cost be damned.

_ Crowley, _ he thinks again, _ stop me, please.  
_

Aziraphale trembles, shoulders shaking as he tenses and rocks slightly on his knees in the middle of his bed.

A low groan rumbles somewhere deep in his chest and before he can talk himself out of it, he clenches his teeth and summons his wings out from his core. 

Pain ignites across his shoulder blades and he lets out a scream he cannot control. He slams his hand over his mouth to muffle the shout, but it’s too little, too late. His cries saturate the bedroom; they fill the entire shop.

It hurts worse this time than it had last time - he’s sure of it. Tears well up in his eyes as pained groans hiss past his teeth. The branches are slow to burst out: they needle their way up through his corporeal flesh in grimy, gnarled detail. This pain is far too much to not be physical. Even though he knows better, because he has been through this before, in this moment he is _sure _that the flesh of his back is ruined once again. This pain is enough that it makes him believe that if he were to touch his back, he would find the same sticky, red blood coating his hand as he had the day he had fallen.

But he knows that these bones are dry. He knows his flesh is whole. The punishment is the _ pain _ now - not the physical affliction.

Aziraphale sucks in a heaving breath and curls down into the mattress, the tops of his thighs press against his chest. He shoves his face into his blankets, if only to try to muffle his own cries - desperate to quell them. His throat is tight, but with stuttering breaths he tries his best to calm down, to remember that this pain will not harm him. At least not physically. His whole body quakes and his face is wet, but the mattress beneath him vows to swallow this grief, and so pressed into it he remains.

Across the room, the bedroom door opens with urgency.

Aziraphale doesn’t have to look up to see who it is.

Crowley, to his credit, says nothing as his eyes hone in on the macabre scene in front of him. Aziraphale, half bare, on his knees like a servant might grovel for forgiveness, with bleached-grey stalks that had once been wings jutting out from his back. There’s no blood now, no outward sign of injury, but the aura of pain that hovers in the air of this room is thick enough that he can taste it.

Crowley lets out a low breath, steps into the room, and closes the bedroom door behind him with a soft click. He pads across the space to the bed with bare feet, and crawls up onto the bed.

He’s not thinking about the implications of his actions - now isn’t really the time for thought anyway - he just wants to be near his angel. He crawls on hands and knees across the tousled blankets over to Aziraphale and kneels behind him.

He lifts one hand and hovers it over the space between Aziraphale’s shoulders - longing to touch, longing to comfort, but not knowing how. His fingers shake as he sets them against Aziraphale’s spine.

Aziraphale startles at Crowley’s touch - and that hurts more than Crowley wants to admit - but he doesn’t recoil it. Instead, he heaves a shaking breath and whispers into the mattress.

“Crowley.”

It’s a plea. It’s a prayer.

It’s a cry for help, for comfort, for… for forgiveness.

Crowley doesn’t know if he has any of that to give.

He exhales slowly and drops his hand and scoots another inch closer. He folds himself across Aziraphale’s back and presses his forehead into the space between his wings where his fingers had just touched. Aziraphale doesn’t startle this time, but allows Crowley in, allows himself to be wrapped up in him.

His cries begin to quiet as Crowley presses a tentative kiss to the tender scar tissue around the base of his wings.

Warmth envelopes him - warmth and fullness Aziraphale has not felt since his Fall. It’s a presence of love… of almost-_ divine _ affection.

Aziraphale sucks in a breath.

“They look a little better, you know,” Crowley whispers into the skin at the base of the wings. “The feathers are coming back…” 

“Crowley…” Aziraphale mumbles, turning his head so his face is no longer pressed into the bed below him. He pushes up slightly, uncurls his body in favor of pressing back into Crowley’s warmth. “They hurt…”

“I know…”

_ They might always hurt when you summon them _ .

Crowley doesn’t say it - but Aziraphale can sense it in his voice.

He unwinds one arm from around Aziraphale and rests a tentative hand against the bony protrusions extending from Aziraphale’s back. He strokes it gently, his fingers taking in the barely-there softness of new feathers that has begun to develop. Aziraphale tenses for a split second as pain flares, but relaxes the next moment as Crowley’s hand soothes it away.

“They’ll be beautiful again. You’re okay.”

“Tell me you’re here, Crowley.”

“I’m here.”

Aziraphale pushes up a little more fully onto his, and Crowley moves with him. He keeps himself pressed close to Aziraphale, wrapped around him like a snake might cling to a rock in the sun. And Aziraphale lets him.

“Do yours hurt?” Aziraphale dares to whisper after a few long moments. His eyes are locked on the wall across from him, not daring to look back over his shoulder - not at the remains of his wings, not at Crowley.

Crowley lifts his head from Aziraphale’s spine.

“Your wings,” Aziraphale clarifies, “do yours also hurt when you summon them?”

Crowley licks his lips; forces the thick lump in his throat down; nods, even if Aziraphale can’t see it.

“Yeah… Yeah, they do.”

Aziraphale hangs his head.

This is his life now, this is his sentencing. This is a pain he will carry for the rest of his existence.

And he’s almost ready to accept that.

He thinks back to the spare few times he has seen Crowley’s wings - it hasn’t been many - a few glances here and there throughout the millennia. The last time he’d seen them was at Armageddon with Adam. They were rich and black, with pitch like nightshade, spanning out across the desert that Crowley had created, all because Aziraphale had _demanded _it of him. He had summoned his wings and drawn on his innermost power to stop _time_ _itself_, all because Aziraphale had given him an ultimatum.

_ Think of something! Or… Or else I’ll never talk to you again.  
_

Aziraphale had never considered Crowley’s pain before - a fact that boils shame deep within his belly. It's only now, with his own broken wings jutting from his back like the bones of dead cypress, that he considers and understands the things Crowley has endured for the world.

Aziraphale skips a breath, understanding washing over him.

_ Wait. No… not for the world… _ , he thinks.

_ For me.  
_

The pain Crowley has endured, the lengths he has gone to, the things he has done, despite his love of the world, has all been for _ him _ .

For Aziraphale. 

He’d saved the world because Aziraphale had threatened to _ leave _ him. He’d harmed himself in the face of Heaven and Hell, summoned his once-angelic wings, suffered their pain to stop the Apocalypse… All because Aziraphale had sworn to abandon him if he didn't.

As if sensing Aziraphale's sudden realization, Crowley’s arms tighten around him. The squeeze draws Aziraphale’s attention back to the present, back to this quiet bedroom where the two of them reside in solitude. It takes a moment for the present to settle in, but it comes with startling clarity. Here in this moment, alone with Crowley wrapped around his body, Aziraphale taking comfort in Crowley’s warmth, he suddenly understands that this pain, this consequence, is something he has _ chosen _ .

Aziraphale realizes, perhaps six millennia too late, that this is something he and Crowley have been choosing for aeons.

At the very least, this is the path Aziraphale has chosen _ because _ of Crowley - because of this demon's vital role in his life. This is the path he picked, because despite all his bluster about ineffable plans, the Almighty’s will, and his own side’s wishes, this 6,000 year long tryst with Crowley has always come first.

It’s always just been them; Aziraphale was only ever truly on Crowley’s side, whether he knew it or not.

Whether he was willing to _ admit _ it or not.

The pain he feels now of being an occult entity (cast down to Hell or not, occult is what Aziraphale is now), will be a burden he bears for eternity. This is the cost he has accrued, the price of all the things he has done despite a facade of innocence and indifference to it all.

For years, Aziraphale has drawn an imaginary line in the sand and has all but ordered Crowley to stay away from it. To stay on his own side. To never toe that line. And yet, Aziraphale has been the one to toe it. He has walked parallel to this line, side-by-side with Crowley, their toes shuffling the sand and erasing the barrier between them with every step they have taken.

When he looks at the space between himself and Crowley now, it’s almost as if there’d never been a line at all.

All his decisions have led to this. This is the path he chose to walk, if only because he couldn’t bear to deviate from it and risk leaving Crowley behind.

And this, Aziraphale realizes, this is the path Crowley has _ always _ walked… Since the very first time they met. He has walked this line and forged this path at Aziraphale’s side for 6,000 long and arduous years.

Aziraphale trembles, a stuttering breath slipping past his teeth.

“I’m- I’m so sorry, my dear,” he whimpers. A single tear drips down his cheek but for the first time since his fall, its presence does not feel wrong or foreign or grotesque. It feels like _ his _ . His very own tears, his very own emotion, not born of pain, but rather of understanding.

“Wha’ for?” Crowley asks, one hand still dragging up and down his shoulder blades and up and down the velveteen base of the stubs on his back.

“I…” He pauses, “I’m afraid I’ve been rather inwardly focused.”

Crowley clears his throat and extracts himself slightly from around Aziraphale, but doesn't severe their contact. He keeps one hand on Aziraphale’s back, the fingers kneading and curling against his skin.

“T-to be expected, I think… I didn’t exactly care about anything else for... _ years _ after I Fell.”

Aziraphale shakes his head.

“It’s not just about the Fall…” He tells Crowley in a low whisper.

Crowley’s hand runs the length of his spine, pausing to rub at his nape, then moving back down to the spots where his ravaged wings protrude from his shoulder blades. 

“I’ve been so afraid, Crowley. All these years. So afraid of this, afraid of Falling because of who I am and what we are, because what we _ shouldn’t _ have been,” Aziraphale pauses, waiting to see if Crowley might chime in, waiting to see if he might deflect from Aziraphale’s implication that _ they _ are anything at all. But he doesn’t. Aziraphale breathes in a long, low breath and continues,

“I knew it was coming, I always knew it was, and yet… despite the fear and all my useless talk, I never _ really _ kept you away, did I? We had our spats, and I know I vowed more than once that we were through, but we never could stay away for long, could we, dear? And you always came back to me…”

Crowley lets out a low hum behind him, but says nothing. 

“I dreaded a Fall, always, I truly did. I don’t want this pain but-”

Crowley doesn’t let him finish.

“But it’ll get better, Angel… You-your wings, they might hurt when you call them, but not always, and not always this bad… You won’t forget the Fall or the pain, but trust me, it gets easier. Things _ will _ go back to how they were.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, urgency tainting every motion.

“I rather think I don’t want things to go back to the way they were.”

It takes a moment, but as the silence hangs between them, Aziraphale feels the tickle of Crowley’s hair against his back. The demon settles his forehead gingerly back down to the space between what’s left of Aziraphale’s wings. 

“I don’t know what I am anymore - not an angel, or a demon, but I suppose… I suppose it doesn’t matter, because you’re here, and you’ve _ always _ been here. That was the only thing that ever made any of this worth it. Perhaps I’m… Perhaps I’m something _ new _ … Perhaps our Mother abandoned me so She could send me to you, instead.”

Aziraphale lets out a shaky sigh and tenses his shoulders, flexing them and wincing as pain spreads across his back in another hot flash. Crowley senses the electric surge of the ache and lifts his forehead off of the angel’s spine.

“I want this pain to stop,” Aziraphale whispers. He pauses a moment before shifting and turning around on the bed to face Crowley more fully. Crowley keeps one arm wrapped around Aziraphale, sliding it down and hovering at the base of his wings. They kneel together now, side by side, bodies canted slightly towards each other in the darkness.

“I want it to stop,” Aziraphale repeats, “but I don’t want to go _ back… _ I don’t think I can, Crowley. I don’t think I can go back to how it was… to how _ we were _ . Not anymore.”

Crowley tilts his head as he stares at Aziraphale. His lips fall open like he wants to speak, but doesn’t.

Aziraphale speaks for him.

“I did not walk this path alone, Crowley.”

_ That _ seems to strike Crowley. The demon’s head rears back a fraction of an inch. HIs face falters and a look of hurt stutters across his expression. Aziraphale only sees it for a moment before Crowley lowers his eyes and plants his gaze firmly onto the sheets beneath them.

“I know you didn’t,” Crowley hisses. “And I’m _ sorry _ .”

He lifts his hand up off Aziraphale’s back and unwinds his arm from around him, pulling it close to himself instead. He rests both hands on his folded knees and wrings his fingers together with nervous energy.

“You wouldn’t be like _ this _ if it weren’t for me…”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale lays on hand over top of Crowley’s, “I mean… I have _ chosen _ this. And I wouldn’t take it back. _ We _ have walked this path and we’ve been doing so for thousands of years now…"

Crowley, for all his usual confidence, keeps his eyes trained on the mattress. But his fingers twitch under Aziraphale’s grip until he eventually turns his hand, unfolds it, and lets Aziraphale lace their fingers together.

“I could’ve stopped,” Aziraphale whispers into the darkened bedroom, “if I’d wanted to. I think I might have even tried once or twice. I have been edging towards _ unforgivable _for centuries, but I knew, and I didn’t want to stop.”

“Maybe you should have,” Crowley sputters. He lifts his free hand and returns it to the husk of Aziraphale’s right wing, stroking the stalk reverently.

“I am so deeply sorry. I have been wrapped up in my grief and my pain and I’ve forgotten you,” Aziraphale hums. There is a tightness in his throat that he wishes he could ward away, but this physical body has more control over him now than it ever has. “I’ve forgotten that for all my punishment, I have been rewarded with you. This is only way I ever truly saw my life: you, here, by my side. And I do not intend to walk forward without you."

Crowley swallows, but says nothing. Instead, he applies a little pressure to Aziraphale’s back and draws them closer,. Their knees brush and Crowley eases their foreheads to rest against each other with an uneasy sigh. Aziraphale closes his eyes and tries to ignore the burning pain across his back, trying instead to absorb Crowley’s presence into himself.

“Do you miss them?” Crowley asks after a few moments. His hand massages the frayed base of Aziraphale’s right wing.

“Darling, I _ ache _ for them,” Aziraphale tells him. And it’s the truth; he longs for their comfort now in the same way he had longed for Crowley during the 60 long years they didn’t speak after the Holy Water request. There is a touch of hurt that lingers still on Crowley’s face. Aziraphale can see it so clearly: he still feels responsible. He still feels as though _ he _ is the one to blame for everything that has happened (to them both). Aziraphale swallows, “But Crowley, having you here with me now, it staves the ache more than redemption ever could.”

Crowley’s forehead tenses against Aziraphale’s. His fingers are suddenly so restless as they titter and massage along the trunks of what remains of Aziraphale’s wings. The touch stings, but it settles nicely down into Aziraphale’s body, warmth spreading through his core with Crowley’s motions.

“Crowley, I-” Aziraphale starts with an uneasy breath, but Crowley doesn’t let him finish. Instead, in one quick swoop, he closes the distance between them and claims Aziraphale’s mouth with his own.

It’s a slow and simple kiss - almost chaste. It is so like - and yet _ unlike _ \- Crowley that Aziraphale hardly knows what to do with it. Crowley is all confidence and sly grins and lewd motions of his hips. Angular, proud, defiant, and willful; to feel him so careful and so precise is far more overwhelming than if he had yanked Aziraphale to him with bruising force.

Aziraphale realizes - with Crowley’s mouth claiming his own - that Crowley has shown him this tenderness before. The 40s, the 60s, the Apocalypse That Wasn’t, his Fall, and now his kiss. Crowley has been there - had _ always _ been there - with kind miracles, quiet words, and a consoling arm ready to embrace Aziraphale whenever he so chose to take it. Aziraphale recalls the feeling of Crowley wrapped around his bloody, battered body as he’d kneeled in grief and pain in the middle of his shop only eight months before.

In this moment, he feels every kind word, every tender smile, every single time Crowley has touched him with a promise that things would be alright.

He doesn’t mean to, but Aziraphale whimpers.

This touch is small but it means the world - it says, without words and without the burden of thought, _ I’m here _ . Relief spreads through Aziraphale, the weight of his plight gone with the simplest act of comfort from his dearest companion. These lips have tasted all the pleasures of the world - food, wine, liquor, human mouths and human bodies - and yet none of them, not a single one, could compare to the taste of this comfort.

They stay like that for a moment, their lips pressed against each other, unwilling to part. Warmth thrums just beneath Aziraphale’s skin. It is a radiant heat that draws the throbbing ache out from his wings and pulls it through his chest, his neck, his head, his mouth, terminating at the place where their corporeal forms collide. Crowley separates them with a stuttered gasp, yanking his head back to allow a centimeter of space between them.

Aziraphale doesn’t miss the way Crowley is panting - his breath sudden and urgent. He watches as Crowley lifts the fingers of his free hand to his lips, touching them as though they were sore.

Crowley clears his throat. Drops his hand onto Aziraphale’s leg.

“Then allow me,” he starts, voice gruff and uneasy. He swallows whatever it is that has come to choke his words, “Allow me to stave the ache.”

The hand on Aziraphale’s back twitches before Crowley drags his fingers the length of Aziraphale’s spine. Down, then back up, before settling once again on the base of his wing. He squeezes it gently, eliciting a sharp hiss from Aziraphale. It hurts for an instant, but the sting disappears in the next, the ache replaced with tenderness.

“O-Oh,” Aziraphale stutters, the muscles of his back twitching at Crowley’s touch.

Crowley seems to need no further encouragement. He surges forward - frantic and urgent this time - and claims Aziraphale’s mouth for a second kiss. And _ oh, yes, this _ , Aziraphale thinks, _ this is the path we have always walked _ . Aziraphale welcomes Crowley with an open mouth - the dire pain in his back subsiding the moment their lips touch again. His hands fall to Crowley’s waist, as Crowley entwines his own around Aziraphale’s back. It’s a flurry of motion and a rustling shuffle of blankets and mattress, but before Aziraphale can think, Crowley has swung one leg across his lap and straddled him.

Crowley’s hands will not be calmed. They are a rush of motion and touch, dragging up and down Aziraphale’s back, his shoulders, his nape, the remnants of his wings as he kisses Aziraphale with 6,000 years worth of history behind him. Every caress of Crowley’s fingers across the base of his wings sends fire jolting through him - hot and painful at first, followed by warmth and calm, as though his hands, his mouth, his body were swallowing whatever pain so afflicted Aziraphale.

“A-angel,” Crowley murmurs into Aziraphale’s mouth.

His hands grip and squeeze at Crowley’s hips, eager to learn their shape and motion. He has seen these hips for thousands of years, has watched their movements for a millennia, but here in the quiet of his bedroom, he longs to _ know _ them. His fingers dig into sharp hipbones and proud muscle, anxious to embed the feeling of Crowley into his brain. One hand slips around to the small of Crowley’s back, urging him close, pushing their hips together as Aziraphale strains to keep their mouths connected.

Crowley hisses through his nose, but his body obeys. He rolls his hips forward and wraps both his arms around Aziraphale fully. His fingernails scrape down Aziraphale’s back but they settle on the fragile stumps that are left of his wings. He holds them and squeezes them, massages them as his tongue probes Aziraphale’s mouth, aching to swallow Aziraphale’s whimpers.

These bones, these hardened trunks, have not died. The velveteen touch of new, tiny feathers plays against his fingertips as Crowley holds onto them. They have not died and nor shall they ever.

They just need to be reborn.

Crowley’s hands run up and down the length of the wing bases, slow and sensual, but with precision and care. The longer he touches, the more urgent Aziraphale’s sounds become, and he drinks each moan as though they were his own.

Aziraphale’s fingers curl against the small of his back, fingernails catching in the thin black fabric of his shirt before they desperately yank it up so he can touch skin. His hands span the expanse of flesh given to him; he splays his palms and fingers across Crowley’s back, feeling it as deeply as he possibly can. He lets his hands creep up, migrating towards Crowley’s shoulder blades, up to the place where his wings would normally exit his body.

There is scar tissue there - Aziraphale can feel the difference in its texture compared to the rest of Crowley’s corporeal form. It is smooth and tender, almost raw, as though it were new. He wonders if it’s ever truly healed from Crowley’s Fall all those years ago. Aziraphale massages into the muscle with determination, his desire to heal as strong as he desire to touch. Crowley hisses and breaks their kiss with a peck of their lips.

Crowley’s golden eyes are honed in on him, meeting Aziraphale’s gaze with tenderness. But there is urgency in his gaze, ferocity and uneasiness behind his stare.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale mutters, bowing forward and pressing his forehead into Crowley’s clothed chest. His fingers never stop their motions along Crowley’s body. They massage and comfort the supple flesh of Crowley’s shoulderblades, his hands fumbling across Crowley’s body like a blind man’s fingers might touch the braille of a most-treasured book.

Crowley is a supernal body in his arms, too much for him to hold, and yet not enough. Aziraphale heaves a heavy breath.

“I have wasted so much time,” He hums into Crowley’s chest, “I have wallowed in my fear for far too long.” 

Crowley’s hands have not stopped their affection on the remnants of Aziraphale’s wings. He rubs the stalks, the bases of what is left of them, before dragging one hand up to Aziraphale’s nape. He threads his long fingers into Aziraphale’s hair, his motions soft and tender beyond what one might expect from a demon of his status.

“We’re here now, aren’t we?” Crowley asks him - rhetorical - as though it excuses all the time Aziraphale has thrown away. But it doesn’t excuse it; it simply can’t.

Aziraphale lifts his head from Crowley’s chest and stares up at him. Crowley’s hands trail across his neck and move to his jaw, gently cupping his face.

“Forgive me, Crowley,” Aziraphale pleads. 

Crowley, for all his resolve, is more than a little taken aback by the request. Worry spans across Crowley’s expression. Aziraphale knows this look - he’s worn it himself, recently. It is a look that asks if he is even _ worthy _ of bestowing something as grandiose as forgiveness.

“Forgive me…” Aziraphale begs again. Crowley’s expression softens.

“I-... I don’t th-” He starts to say before he pauses and shakes his head. With a new resolve, he stares down into Aziraphale’s eyes and tells him plainly: “There is nothing to forgive.”

“Please,” Aziraphale keens, “Please, just…”

Just what, he doesn’t know. Please, just release him from the burden of all the time he has thrown to the wayside over the centuries.

Crowley pauses and drags nimble fingers through Aziraphale’s hair like a blessing.

“Oh, Angel,” He sighs, leaning down to claim Aziraphale’s mouth, before muttering against his lips, “I forgive you.”

Something radiant deep within Aziraphale’s core surges at those words. He presses his palms flat against Crowley’s back and urges his hands further up, ushering Crowley’s shirt up and off his body. He presses his forehead back against Crowley’s now-bare chest, inhaling the profound scent of him.

He smells nothing of Hell, nor anything of Heaven. He smells like _ Crowley _ . Evergreen and musk and delicious skin.

Aziraphale huffs an urgent breath and drops his arms down to Crowley’s legs. He scoops his arms beneath Crowley’s knees and yanks on them, flopping Crowley firmly onto his back against the mattress. Aziraphale slots himself into the open space between Crowley’s legs with a slow, languid roll of his hips.

His back and the broken branches of his wings ache with every movement he makes, but Aziraphale forgets the pain, forgets it _ all _ , the moment he latches his mouth onto Crowley’s neck. He nips and bites and tastes - never hard, but full of reverence as Crowley whimpers and groans beneath him. He grinds his hips down again, gasping at the feeling of Crowley’s noticeable Effort pressing against his own.

It takes a considerable amount of willpower, but Aziraphale forces himself to extract his mouth from Crowley’s throat, pushing himself up on his arms to stare down at the creature beneath him.

Crowley is - well, he is _ Crowley _ \- but so overcome, so disheveled, so earnest and true as he stares back up at Aziraphale with needful, amber eyes.

_ Oh _ , Aziraphale thinks, _ this is it, isn’t it?  
_

_ This is salvation. This is redemption. _

Aziraphale flexes his shoulders ever so slightly, feeling a jolting stab pang across them. Crowley, always watching, senses Aziraphale’s flinch. He lets his hands, which have been so firmly settled on Aziraphale’s hips, slide up Aziraphale’s sides and around to his back. He fumbles for Aziraphale’s broken wing stalks, finds them, and strokes the bones again. Beneath his fingers there is still the soft velvet of budding softness, of new growth, of new feathers that he had noticed earlier.

“Still hurts?”

Aziraphale nods but lowers himself back down into Crowley’s space.

“Doesn’t matter,” he whispers against Crowley’s mouth as he claims it for yet another kiss.

Aziraphale braces himself on one arm and lets his other explore. It drags down the length of Crowley’s chest, brushes through course hair and taut muscle, until it finds the cool metal of his belt buckle.

Were this another time, he might have simply miracled their clothing away, and Aziraphale is almost tempted to try. It is only the twisting nervousness in his gut that stops him - the fear that if he tries, he will be faced with the reality that his power is gone for good. And so, rather than will them away, he proceeds in the most old-fashioned of ways.

He revels in the power of motion and touch instead. Deftly, he unbuckles the belt and unbuttons of Crowley’s pants, encouraged by Crowley’s own hands mirroring his actions. Those long, lanky fingers of his find the place where soft cloth meets skin, and they wriggle their way beneath the waistband of Aziraphale’s pants.

Aziraphale almost likes it better this way - it’s more involved, more precise than a miracle. This ritual of clothing removal is a reminder of all the intricate ways they are entwined, so caught up around each other that they must touch and work for the things they crave.

It is corporeal and real; it is carnal; it is so achingly _ human _ .

Crowley’s touch never leaves him. His hands wander and explore, visiting and revisiting every part of the body exposed to him. He returns, more than once, to Aziraphale’s wings, and each time he touches them, they feel different and new. He says nothing of it to Aziraphale, but he revels in the ever-changing texture of these once-dead stumps jutting from Aziraphale’s back.

The feathers are thicker now at the bases, the bones more proud, the shapes more defined.

Aziraphale lowers his head back to Crowley’s throat; his tongue laps at his skin and nips at his flesh. He is sweet and savory in his mouth, a luscious flavor that reminds him of every good thing he has ever experienced. At his back, Crowley’s hands - firm and sure - caress the bone protrusions; Aziraphale’s hips stutter at every morsel of attention Crowley pays to them. It hurts - but not in the same way it had hurt the first day, nor in the same way that it had hurt earlier this very evening when he had called these bones out for the first time in eight long months. This hurts like an open wound being stitched closed, like the burn of local anesthetic, like the slide of a suture. It aches with healing and Aziraphale craves its care.

Crowley - his touch, his body, his soul - is ethereal in ways Aziraphale had thought he’d never feel again. If Aziraphale were inclined to blaspheme, he might even call him _ godly _ . And inclined to blaspheme Aziraphale absolutely _ is _ . Why shouldn’t he be? God has abandoned him, and perhaps more profound, he has abandoned Her. Aeons of _ vaguely sauntering _ (as Crowley had once put it) away from Her, and Aziraphale realizes, if only just now, that those aeons have been spent phasing her out, replacing Her with Crowley’s divinity instead.

With a low groan, Aziraphale drags his hand down Crowley’s throat, chest, abdomen, hips, pelvis, pausing only once he’s reached the noticeable ache in Crowley’s dark pants.

_ Yes _ , he thinks, _ this is my God _ .

Crowley moans - wanton and urgent beneath his hands.

_ This is my savior.  
_

“Angel,” Crowley whimpers once Aziraphale’s hand has paused above his crotch, “Please…”

As if for encouragement, he gives one of Aziraphale’s wing bones a slow, reassuring stroke. He follows the motion with a long slide of his hand down Aziraphale’s back, stopping only to grab at his ass and urge his pelvis forward more.

“Yes, love,” Aziraphale hums before dipping down to claim Crowley’s mouth once more.

He ushers both their pants and underwear without care and without ceremony. They have spent six millennia dancing courtship around each other, Aziraphale figures this contact is more than earned. He is no stranger to the intricacies of human-presenting bodies; he grips Crowley’s dick with a sense of urgent certainty that makes the demon arch his bed up from the sheets. His hand wrenches back up Aziraphale’s back and clings to the bones of his wings in a harsh motion.

Aziraphale hisses from the suddenness of the touch and jerks from the spark of pain jolting through him.

“Sorry,” Crowley grunts, but doesn’t let go of the wing bases. Instead, he strokes them again, “They hurt still?” He asks, even though he knows the answer.

“They do, love, they do…”

Crowley doesn’t say anything, but he stares over Aziraphale’s shoulder at what he can see of the remains. Crowley hums and strokes them again. His fingers are so lithe, so firm in the way they touch him, like Crowley could peel away the layers of his pain until all that remained was the raw pieces of soul.

“Aziraphale…”

Something spreads within him - the mere sound of his name slipping past Crowley’s teeth like a prayer fills him completely. The pain subsides beneath his touch and Aziraphale finds it in himself to continue his ministrations on Crowley’s dick. The demon’s head presses back into the mattress, eyes screwing shut at the sudden resumption of motion.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale groans as he dips his head down to taste the sweet flesh of Crowley’s throat again. He nips and bites his way up along the muscles and sinew of this mortal body, thrusting his own hardened cock against Crowley’s hip as he does so, until he reaches the demon’s ear.

“Crowley,” He hums again into Crowley’s ear, “Please... Take the pain away…”

“Y-yes, Angel, you know I will.”

“You already do…”

Crowley turns his head so their cheeks are pressing together. Mouth open, he trails wet kisses along Aziraphale’s jaw and ear, breath beginning to heave as Aziraphale continues to stroke him. He holds the stumps of Aziraphale’s wings, too afraid to let them go, too afraid that if he releases them, then Aziraphale might be yanked away from him completely, dragged away and down to the pit like he once was all those years ago. So Crowley clings, and he clutches, and he writhes, canting his hips up, silently pleading for more.

Aziraphale seems to get the hint. It’s agonizing, but he eventually releases Crowley’s cock and moves his hand towards Crowley’s mouth. He presents his fingers without instruction, but Crowley doesn’t miss the request. There is no hesitation before Crowley draws Aziraphale’s fingers into his mouth and begins to suck on them - reverent and lewd as his tongue forks and curves around the digits. It sends a chill along Aziraphale’s spine.

Something sharp cracks across his shoulder blades in a sudden burst. It is quick, but harsh, like popping a stiff neck, leaving just a warm, dull ache in its wake. Aziraphale shakes his head and tries to ignore the sensation, focusing instead on Crowley’s lips wrapped around his fingers like they were his cock.

_ This is worship _ , he thinks to himself, and wonders how he had never noticed this adoration in Crowley before. It has always been there - a fact that is finally sinking into the deepest recesses of his core - but has he truly been too self-involved to notice it till now?

He knows he has been.

Aziraphale says nothing before he tugs his fingers out of Crowley’s mouth with an unceremonious pop. Crowley needs no further instruction - he parts his legs a little more, hiking one leg up to give Aziraphale more room as he nudges the tip of one digit against his hole. Crowley’s body tenses in anticipation at the touch, a stuttering breath heaving from deep within his chest. Aziraphale rubs his entrance slow and determined but doesn’t push in. Crowley’s spit isn’t nearly wet enough to ensure a smooth entry and no matter how desperate Aziraphale is for him, no matter how much he longs for closeness, he will not cause his companion discomfort. Crowley seems to sense Aziraphale’s hesitation and he sighs long and low. A sudden slickness lines his entrance, smoothing Aziraphale’s circling motions to luxurious slipperiness.

“Oh, love,” Aziraphale whispers as he nibbles at Crowley’s earlobe, “tell me this is alright…”

Crowley drags his hands down from the broken tips of Aziraphale’s wings to where they meet the scar tissue along his shoulder blades. He curls his fingers, his sharp fingernails digging into the flesh, as he nods desperately.

“Yes, Aziraphale,” Crowley tells him. Something _ full _ and _ warm _ pulse through Aziraphale again at the sound of his name tumbling off Crowley’s tongue. Another crackle pops through his shoulder blades and jolts up through the bony remains of his fingers, but Aziraphale doesn’t care because Crowley is still touching them, massaging them, comforting their trauma.

“Forgive me,” Aziraphale pleads of Crowley once again, “Forgive me for all the times I have forgotten you…”  
  
Crowley lets out a choked whimper, thrashing his head to the side at the request, but he nods.

“You’re forgiven,” He keens, “I forgive you.”

Another sharp crack resounds through Aziraphale’s back, but it dulls immediately, replaced instead with lavish euphoria. It’s all Aziraphale needs before he slips a single digit into Crowley. He knows that Crowley could easily miracle himself ready - he is already so soft and pliant and open beneath Aziraphale’s touch - but Aziraphale doesn’t want that. He wants to do this properly. He wants to shower Crowley in care, to focus on him, to tend to him with the same gentle support he has provided Aziraphale for ages. He wants to show him the same love Crowley has shown him since his Fall, the same love Crowley has shown him since they first met.

He works Crowley open with steady precision, reveling in the way Crowley’s body writhes beneath his touch. He feeds on every moan that stutters past Crowley’s lips as he slides one, then two, then three, then four fingers into him until he knows that Crowley is all but dying for more.

“Angel, _ please _ ,” Crowley begs, leaving no question about what he wants.

“Yes, love, I’m here,” Aziraphale tells him as he removes his fingers and resettles himself between Crowley’s legs. He lines his cock up but pauses before he thrusts in. He plants his elbows on either side of Crowley’s head, fingers smearing sweat-slicked hair from off of Crowley’s forehead. He plants a soft kiss on each of Crowley’s eyes and pulls away slightly.

“Look at me.”

Crowley obeys.

“Tell me,” Aziraphale instructs.

_ Tell me what you want, tell me this is okay, tell me what I can do to make up for the love of yours I have wasted. _

Crowley stares up at him before he cranes up to claim Aziraphale’s mouth.

“Take me,” he murmurs against Aziraphale’s lips.

Aziraphale slides in without hesitation. Crowley’s legs tighten around him in response, drawing him in with persistent urgency.

“Ah- Aziraphale…”

Another sharp crack tears through Aziraphale’s body at the sound of his name on Crowley’s lips. It’s harsher this time, like the breaking of a bone, but the calm that follows is blissful.

“Crowley,” he groans in return. The name is a prayer, a word of worship, a repayment of reverence for all the times he missed before. Another surge of abundance washes through him, generated from the deepest parts of his core. As he fills Crowley, he feels his own body filling as well, completeness seeping into all the crevices left empty by the Almighty.

Divine presence replaced with sanctified love: Aziraphale wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not for God, not for Satan, not for the _ world _ . This love is his - it is _ theirs _ .

Aziraphale comes back to his body, his hips establishing a long, slow rhythm into Crowley. Crowley’s voice grows quieter, but far more desperate, far more broken, far more _ dire _ . He clings to Aziraphale’s back, drags his nails up from the base of his spine to his shoulder blades, leaving red, linear welts in their wake. He slips his hands around the base of Aziraphale’s wings again. He drags his fingers up from the bases and out to the broken tips.

Aziraphale can’t help but notice that it seems to take Crowley a second longer to reach their ends each time, as though they were longer. But perhaps, he thinks, Crowley is simply moving more slowly. Aziraphale can’t complain - he is frantic for this love, greedy for this affection in ways he never thought possible in him. 

He craves this healing.

“Yes, oh, Zira,” Crowley hisses as he clutches at the bones of his wings.

Something overtakes him in this moment. The stinging ache in his back has disappeared from his thoughts - the horrific violence of his Fall forgotten with it. He feels, as he thrusts, as though he were whole again. And he realizes, with striking clarity, that he _ is _ whole. Right here, right now, connected with Crowley in only the most human and most intimate of ways, Aziraphale is the creature he is supposed to be.

Aziraphale flexes his shoulders with a harsh _ snap _ and Crowley’s hands grip his wings harder.

“Y-your wings… Th-they’re...” Crowley stutters. He tries to open his eyes to look at Aziraphale, but he is hazy with the pleasure, rocked into peace with every thrust Aziraphale delivers him. 

“Look at me, darling, _ please _ ,” Aziraphale begs, and Crowley obeys.

His amber eyes are heavy and half-lidded, and although he meets Aziraphale’s gaze at first, his attention is quickly refocused over Aziraphale’s shoulder instead.

With a low groan, Aziraphale slows his hips. He pushes up slightly so he can balance on his knees. He yanks Crowley up slightly by the hips so he’s balanced slightly on Aziraphale’s thighs, opening him up so Aziraphale can thrust more deeply into him. Crowley, for all his usual composure, breaks. He moans and whimpers sounds that Aziraphale has never heard before; they penetrate his flesh and sink deep into his core with burning heat.

Aziraphale keeps one arm on Crowley’s hip, but he plants the other against Crowley’s chest. He doesn’t press on him, merely rests it there, threads his fingers into the sparse curls he finds there.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale huffs, “tell me you’re here…”

“I’m here,” Crowley answers without even a second’s hesitation.

Another jolt snaps through Aziraphale’s body, wrenching something deep and unseen out from the deepest recesses of his soul. He exclaims softly and curls his fingers against Crowley’s chest. He closes his eyes and fights not to rake his nails across Crowley’s skin.

“Oh, oh, Zira, oh _ fuck _ ,” Crowley moans as Aziraphale thrusts, and Aziraphale has to wonder if his demon is still watching him through those those bleary, haf-lidded eyes or if they are screwed shut.

He wonders if he still looks debauched, if he still looks _ divine _ .

No, Aziraphale _knows_ he still looks divine. But he opens his eyes anyway, just to see it.

Crowley isn’t staring up at him anymore, nor is he staring over Aziraphale’s shoulder now either. Instead, Aziraphale notes, his eyes are cast down at the space between them, to the place where Aziraphale’s hand is resting against his sternum. Aziraphale follows his gaze and his thrusts stutter at the sight before him.

“You’re…” Crowley starts, but doesn’t finish, as he darts his gaze back up to Aziraphale’s face.

Between them, Aziraphale’s hand is no longer resting against Crowley’s chest. Instead, it has faded and slipped _ into _ him, merging into Crowley’s being without effort or restraint.

Aziraphale cannot bring himself to draw his hand away.

If he focuses, he can feel the black tendrils of Crowley’s essence dancing and threading around his fingertips.

_ This is his soul, _ Aziraphale thinks, _ this is his soul and he has let me into it.  
_

A sudden surge of energy fires beneath Aziraphale’s hand - warmth, power, affection - and it holds onto him like lovers might hold each others’ hands.

Crowley, in response, removes his hand from the base of one of Aziraphale’s wings, and plants it firmly over where Aziraphale’s human heart resides in his chest. It only takes a moment before Aziraphale’s body has consumed Crowley’s hand in return, just as Crowley’s had done to him. His long, lanky fingers slip into Aziraphale’s body like they were pulling on a glove.

“Aziraphale, oh my god,” Crowley whimpers, and for once he doesn’t flinch at the mention of ‘god’.

Aziraphale can only wonder what god he is pleading with… Doesn’t dwell on the fact that Aziraphale has been the only creature Crowley has ever pleaded with for anything.

He meets Crowley’s gaze with need, but he maintains the steady, filling rhythm of his hips. He is enveloped in Crowley: his warm heat around his cock, his hand cradling the broken remains of one of his wings, the other intertwined with his heart. Aziraphale is weak - Aziraphale wants to pray.

Instead, he says Crowley’s name. He figures that word _ is _ his prayer now. Crowley is his now to cry for, to pray to - Crowley is salvation. Crowley is a god to him and Aziraphale will worship him for the remainder of his days.

Never again will he let this love wander on its own.

Crowley’s eyes suddenly grow wide as they stare up at Aziraphale and a final, loud _ CRACK _ snaps through the room like a flash of lightning. Something hot and almost painful surges through Aziraphale’s chest, wrought by Crowley’s hand clenched around his heart. The electric pain rips through his body like a shockwave. It zings from the deepest parts of him, through his corporeal body, and out through the bony stubs of his wings. Aziraphale shouts - there is pain, there is pleasure, his orgasm is nearing now, but the sting of this electricity is overwhelming.

Crowley, however, doesn’t let him slow down. When Aziraphale’s hips begin to falter, Crowley’s own pick up the pace. He arches his low back and juts his pelvis up to meet Aziraphale’s motions, thrusting himself onto Aziraphale’s cock with desperate determination. Aziraphale feels Crowley’s fingers tighten within his chest, clinging to him as he urges them together in the most physical and metaphysical of ways.

Something in his back contorts and cracks. Aziraphale screws his eyes shut; his muscles clench, his bones snap, and he is weak like he has been broken head to toe. But despite the pain, he chooses to focus on the attention Crowley is paying him.

He is an absolute _ wreck _ beneath Aziraphale. For all Aziraphale’s feelings of weakness and ruin, Crowley is just as much a mess. His hand is still deeply embedded in Crowley’s chest, just as Crowley’s is within his. He can _ feel _ him so deeply - the motion of their bodies, the thrumming of their blood, the absolute _ vibrancy _ in the places where their souls connect.

“Your wings,” Crowley gasps as he opens his eyes.

Aziraphale shouts again as something tugs on him _ hard _ , like a hook lodged in his flesh has yanked him backwards. He straightens his back and takes it in - it is a stitching, it is anesthetic, it is _ healing _ , and all Aziraphale wants to know is this moment here with Crowley.

He’s so close, and by the tight clench of Crowley’s body around his cock, Aziraphale is sure that he is too.

Another tug on his back.

“Don’t stop,” Crowley pleads with him. And Aziraphale doesn’t. He thrusts harder now, edging them both closer and closer, until suddenly, pleasure erupts around him. The rooms fills with a bright and blinding light for the briefest of moments as they come together, their names on each others’ lips. Something _ tears _ out from inside of Aziraphale, ripping out of his back in a surge of pleasure.

Aziraphale grows weak and folds himself down onto Crowley, who embraces him in full. He buries his head in Crowley’s throat and loops his arms under Crowley’s shoulders to cling to him. Crowley returns his affection, he keeps one hand on the base of one wing, as the other hand strokes the short hairs at Aziraphale’s nape with tenderness.

Just faintly, Aziraphale could _ swear _ he hears a slight fluttering of feathers.

“Zira,” Crowley whispers into his hair before nudging his head up with his chin so their eyes can meet.

“Aziraphale, look…” Crowley tells him.

Despite the heaviness of his head and the exhaustion coursing through his physical form, Aziraphale forces his head up and cranes it around to stare over his shoulders. Something clenches hot and tight in his gut at the sight displayed before him: spread behind him, in luscious, shining glory, are a pair of silver-grey wings. He doesn’t mean to but a soft gasp ekes past his lips. He yanks his gaze back down to Crowley, who meets his gaze with a soft smile, before he turns his focus back to his wings. He flexes them gingerly; the feathers at the tips are a rich crimson, as though they’d been dipped in blood. Aziraphale supposes, in a way, they have been: dragged through the mire of his and Crowley’s bodies with bruising force.

Speaking of their bodies, Aziraphale realizes they’re still connected, both in the literal and metaphysical sense. His softening cock is still buried inside his friend, and when he glances between them, he realizes that the essences of their souls are still writhing and reaching for each other in the small space between their bodies. Crowley’s blackened soul - glittery like a night’s sky - mixes with the metallic red essence of Aziraphale’s.

He sighs and does nothing to extricate himself from Crowley. Instead, he settles down more fully onto him and allows them to exist as one, if only for a little longer. Behind him, his wings flourish and twitch contentedly. He clenches his eyes closed and buries his face Crowley’s throat again, trying as best he can to quash the surge of emotion building up inside of him.

“They’re gorgeous, you know?” Crowley whispers into his ear. Aziraphale nods in urgent acknowledgement; his eyes are wet, the salty tears smearing across Crowley’s skin. He knows they’re beautiful - just as Crowley had promised him they would be. But he cannot help but believe they’re beautiful _ because _ of Crowley, and he wonders if the demon even realizes it.

It takes a few more moments before Aziraphale forces himself up off of his partner and onto his knees. The black and crimson essences between them cling for a moment, tendrils desperate like fingers to hold onto the other, before they finally disentangle and separate. The glows seep back into their respective bodies and settle somewhere deep within their cores.

Aziraphale might be imagining it, but he could’ve sworn that he saw a hint of metallic red enter Crowley’s body, and a hint of cosmological black seep back into his own as the essence returned to him. Once the glow has disappeared, he clutches at his chest and searches for a trace of Crowley’s lifeblood within him.

He is sure it’s there.

He smiles down at Crowley and takes another glance over his shoulder at his wings. They’re so new, so different than the pristine white he had spent his entire existence until now carrying. He loves them.

He still doesn’t know what he is, but when he turns back to stare down at Crowley - naked, vulnerable, spent - on the bed beneath him, he cannot bring himself to care. These wings are his, they are Crowley’s, and he is whatever he is.

He has been forgiven by the only creature that has ever truly mattered to him.

Aziraphale breathes low and slow and settles down onto the bed beside Crowley. He rests one arm across Crowley’s chest, smiling when Crowley cups his jaw and strokes his cheek with a warm thumb.

Aziraphale closes his eyes and relaxes his wing, draping it across the two of them like a blanket.

**::**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank y'all so much for reading this and for being patient with the time I took to get this second chapter posted! I really hope it was worth the wait. If you liked it, I'd love to hear from you, your comments are my life force. 
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://commodorecliche.tumblr.com) and on [twitter](https://twitter.com/commodorecliche). I primarily write, but you might catch a glimpse of some art too if you squint. I'm always looking for new good omens folks to chat with and follow, too! So come hang out with me. 
> 
> Thanks again, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This fic originally started as "wings angst", but eventually developed into "wings angst -> wings love -> wings porn -> wings hurt/comfort". 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://commodorecliche.tumblr.com) and on [twitter](https://twitter.com/commodorecliche). 
> 
> Rebloggable version of this fic: [here](https://commodorecliche.tumblr.com/post/187063243913/and-in-sad-cypress-we-shall-be-laid-chapter-22)  
Retweetable version of this fic: [here](https://twitter.com/commodorecliche/status/1162547369273167873?s=20)
> 
> If you guys liked this, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. It definitely gives me a lot of encouragement when I'm writing. Thank you again!


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